Actually, I had planned to write my monthly review only tomorrow, but it would be stupid to interrupt this routine. So here is a short overview of what was going on in August:

At the beginning of the month, I spent some time looking at where I store my files online. I’ve now switched from Hetzner’s Storage Share to Microsoft’s OneDrive. A controversial decision, but I think it was the right one. I trust that my files are now better protected against data loss. Plus, for almost the same price, I get ten times as much storage and the Microsoft Office programs right along with it. But the Android app also has a nice feature: every day I can look at photos from the same day in previous years. That’s already led to a few discoveries.

Thanks to vacation time and absence of most colleagues, there was not much going on at work. But there was a (German) article about my first four months as a software developer anyway.

After work, I was occupied with other topics. For example Tailscale, which now allows me to access my home network on the road without having to set port forwarding in the router. Or a better way to protect my diary.

In the first week of my vacation from work, I made another investment in some electronics. First, I bought a used small computer that I can now use as a code and media server. It replaces a virtual private server in the cloud that I used to work on my private projects from anywhere. Second, I bought a new watch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, which I’ve already written my initial thoughts on as well.

In addition, I had no internet at home for more than 24 hours in the first week. That annoyed the hell out of me and ensured that I have now taken precautions and my Internet may soon be even faster. Such an outage during working hours would have caused me some headaches, as I rely on a permanent stable internet connection for my current work from home.

The second week off from work I was then on summer vacation in Flensburg with my girlfriend. Since I don’t have a car since last month, we went there by train, luckily at a time without strikes. Flensburg is a really nice city, with a well-preserved old town and a historical background in seafaring. The proximity to Denmark also invited us to make trips across the border twice and explore the neighboring country a bit (1, 2). Our accommodation was not quite as we had imagined, and also the weather was rather not what you would expect in August, but overall it was a very nice and relaxing week. It was very practical on vacation that we were both already fully vaccinated and could thus save ourselves the daily tests.

Now I am in the process of settling back into the daily work routine.